An Overview Of The History And Use Of Table Lamps

When your child needs to study till late at night due to the ongoing exams while the other members of the family needs to sleep, or when you need to work on an important presentation to deliver the next day in office while your spouse sleeps, you will need some light that will suit yours as well as others purpose. In such situations the table lamps happens to be your best friend and solution. You use it often but you may not know the history of it for sure. If you want to be enlightened, puns included, read on to now about the use of table lamps.

The History Of It

Going back to the time of darkness, people always wanted to remove it right from the prehistoric times. The earliest recorded history of table lamps dates back to 70,000 BC. Yes, you read it correct and it is natural that you are surprised. In these times, a hollow shell or a piece of rock was filled with moss soaked in animal fat. It was ignited to get light.

Over time such holding materials changed and people started to make pottery from animal bones and alabaster. In due course of time, wicks were introduced to these to control the burning rate of the fire.

It was not until 7th Century BC when the Greeks made terra cotta ‘lamps’, a word that is symbolically derived from Greek language meaning ‘torch’.

Invention Of Electric Lamps

Later in the 18th century central burner was invented what we call an oil lamp today. The oil provided the source of energy held in a metal encasement along with a metal tube to regulate the amount of fuel to make the light bright.

Then was the invention of electric lamp by Sir Humphrey Davy in 1801. This is a carbon arc lamp where two carbon rods were introduced at a specific distance to the electric source to cause an arc and thereby light it up. This was later worked upon and Sir Joseph Swann and Thomas Edison invented the true electric table lamps for the first time. The first lamp to be commercially sold in the world was at 1879 and invented by Thomas Edison. Since then, table lamps have come a long way.

Uses Of Table Lamps

Table lamps can be used as layered lighting plan and there are several interesting ways to use table lamps.

• As task lighting – You can focus the light directly below on the object that you are working on or reading.
• For decorative lighting – you can accentuate lighting in a room by picking the right type of table lamps that has translucent shades of silk, linen or rice paper to spread the light and create a better ambience.
• To match the décor – Irrespective of the room design, you can use several modern lamps to add a new meaning to the interior decoration.

Therefore, to save your eyes from myopic conditions while reading at night or for lighting your bedroom when you sleep or relax your eyes, table lamps are the best choice.

Me (Amit Sharma)is an all-time professional Writer and very honest sincere and up-front blogger. In general, I try to blog up-front and honest, without being argumentative or confrontive.